Shankaracharya Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati has been baring his fangs at the Shirdi Sai Baba on and off from Haridwar. His grudge is that mesmerised by the ‘pompous’ audio-visual shows, the ‘gullible’ Hindus are seeking to defy the saint to the exalted status of the Hindu gods. Naturally, such is obnoxious to the seer as the saint happens to be born of Muslim parents. He further said that the worship of the unworthy had spawned drought in Maharashtra. According to his saintly wisdom, calamity comes in the wake of the worship of the unworthy. More like flood is in store for Maharashtra unless the trend of the Hindus genuflecting before the Sai Baba stops.
The Shankaracharya is definitely a custodian of what is known as Sanatana Dharma. But what is Sanatana DharmaIJ It is, of course, the Hindu religion flowing through millennia in its innumerable streams. It is called eternal. But what is the Hindu religionIJ
let us see what Sri Aurobindo said in his famous Uttarpara speech. “It is the Hindu religion only because the Hindu nation has kept it, because in this Peninsula it grew up in the seclusion of the sea and the Himalayas... But it is not circumscribed by the confines of a single country. It does not belong peculiarly and forever to a bounded part of the world. That which we call the Hindu religion is really the eternal religion, because it is the universal religion which embraces all others. If a religion is not universal, it cannot be eternal. Anarrow religion, a sectarian religion, an exclusive religion can live only for a limited time and a limited purpose. This is the one religion that can triumph over materialism by including and anticipating the discoveries of science and the speculations of philosophy. It is the one religion which impresses on mankind the closeness of God to us and embraces in its compass all the possible means by which man can approach God. It is the one religion which insists every moment on the truth which all religions acknowledge that He is in all men and all things and that in Him we move and have our being.”
let us see now what Swami Vivekananda says, defining the soul of Sanatana Dharma. “I shall go to the mosque of the Mohammedan; I shall enter the Christian’s church and kneel before the Crucifix…I shall go into the forest and sit down in meditation with the Hindu, who is trying to see the light which enlightens the heart of everyone. Not only shall I do all these, but I shall keep my heart open for all that may come in the future. Is God’s book finished, or is it still a continuous revelation going onIJ”
Do these words not encapsulate what constitutes the assimilative genius of Hinduism which gets stronger not by keeping others outside its folds but by embracing all into itself as parts of the vibrant, pulsating OneIJ
Unless Hinduism is dynamic, world-affirming and robust, endowed with an invincible self-confidence, absorbing others, including others, assimilating others in an insatiable hunger it can never lead things in the direction of making India a broad, embracing and vibrant federation of all the religions under the sun that is what constitutes the true mission of the Hindu culture epitomised by Sanatana Dharma.
It is believed that the Sanatana Dharma grew weak when Islam came crashing down on India in the 7th Century. But this is wrong. Sanatana Dharma did not grow weak. It can never grow weak. The civilisation which thrived for ages on the magnificent bedrock of Sanatana Dharma grew weak after it was engaged with abandon in a plethora of activities over a considerably long time in all the realms that a civilisation can think of.
The Hindus were weak as they were tired. They had experienced much, sounded life, sounded joy and found that life was just vanity of spirit with nothing new left more to explore. Aberrations also crept into the body of the Hindu nation’s thinking as it happened to every civilisation after the initial vitality was lost. Islam came at that critical juncture. The ancient Hindu race was defeated, rather crushed under the exuberance gushing from newly founded Islam. The Hindus, in general, shut themselves up in the cul-de-sac of touch-me not-ism to keep the Islamic influence at bay.
Sanatana Dharma has been absorbing Islam rather imperceptibly since the latter arrived at the Indian shores, transforming it from within. When a section of the Hindus is showing strength now to absorb the ‘Muslim’ Sai Baba in the Sanatana Dharma it is one of the revered Shankaracharyas who is raising hammer and tongs to defeat the process. It is strange.
